Nue Sandboxes: Develop, Test and Validate with Confidence

nue sandboxes provide secure, isolated environments where you can confidently develop, test, and validate changes without impacting your production data or workflows whether you’re building new features, troubleshooting issues, or running simulations, sandboxes ensure your work remains safe and controlled this guide walks you through the end to end lifecycle of nue sandbox management including creation, connection, configuration, and best practices so you can streamline your development process and reduce deployment risk let's get started! what are nue sandboxes? a nue sandbox is an isolated, pre production environment that mirrors your production setup, enabling you to safely implement, configure, and test changes before deploying them live nue sandboxes can be connected to your salesforce sandboxes, they are designed for end to end validation of any products and pricing configuration, billing and collection workflows, or automation across the revenue lifecycle each nue sandbox is connected to a corresponding salesforce sandbox and managed centrally within the nue platform from the nue admin interface, you can provision new sandboxes, establish or update salesforce connections, refresh configurations, and manage their full lifecycle—including provision, activation, deactivation, and replacement nue sandboxes are accessible at https //app sandbox nue io as shown in the sandbox lifecycle diagram, sandbox environments evolve over time—salesforce sandboxes may be refreshed or replaced, requiring updates to their linked nue sandboxes nue provides flexible options to reconnect , replace , or retire sandboxes to ensure your environments remain in sync and ready for rigorous pre production testing when working with multiple sandbox environments, nue offers two main approaches to ensure proper alignment with salesforce sandboxes solution i is suitable when a salesforce sandbox has been refreshed or replaced, but the corresponding nue sandbox remains active in this scenario, you can reconnect the existing nue sandbox to the new salesforce sandbox however, a key consideration with this approach is the need to purge data in the nue sandbox purge data in the nue sandbox before reconnecting this ensures data consistency and prevents potential conflicts between outdated sandbox data and the refreshed salesforce environment in contrast, solution ii involves a full environment reset , where both the salesforce sandbox and the associated nue sandbox are replaced this approach establishes a new connection between the refreshed salesforce sandbox and a newly provisioned nue sandbox, while the original nue sandbox is deactivated solution ii is recommended when you want a clean slate or need to mirror an entirely new salesforce environment for more extensive testing or implementation overview of sandbox management key capabilities seamlessly provision new nue sandboxes , each connected to a corresponding salesforce sandbox org track and manage sandbox licenses , with controls to enforce limits on active environments automate re connection workflows when salesforce sandboxes are refreshed or replaced automatically copy production configurations to sandboxes upon initial connection maintain full visibility and control with a clear ui for managing sandbox status and lifecycle actions access your nue sandboxes via https //app sandbox nue io licensing and permissions this feature requires a sandbox management license every nue customer is provided with one sandbox license by default at no additional cost if you require additional sandboxes for example, for development, uat, or staging environments, please contact your account manager to purchase additional licenses permissions to access "sandbox management" feature, the following functional permission is required for the user role sandbox management manage sandboxes getting started to get started, admin users should log in to the production tenant and follow the steps below to access sandbox management login to your production tenant navigate to system settings, and search sandbox management on the sandbox management page, users can view all sandboxes associated with their current production tenant and create new sandboxes columns in the sandbox list include action (login, deactivate, connect/re connect, edit, delete) sandbox name sandbox alias, e g ,dev, uat, staging sandbox admin name status available values are created, pending connection, salesforce connected, pending activation, active, inactive status messages created date activated date sandbox lifecycle and actions each nue sandboxes moves through a set of statuses, with available actions tailored to each step the status transition can be illustrated below created → pending connection → salesforce connected → pending activation → active → inactive created → pending connection → salesforce connected → pending activation → active → inactive the following table outlines the actions available by status status description available actions created sandbox has been created but not yet accessed first login and salesforce connection are pending connect to salesforce edit delete pending connection the sandbox tenant is logged in for the first time, but not yet connected to salesforce activation requires connection connect to salesforce edit delete salesforce connected connected to salesforce configuration is being copied from production no action required refresh configuration activate login reconnect to salesforce edit delete pending activation connected to salesforce, configuration copied from production, and ready for activation refresh configuration activate login reconnect to salesforce edit delete active this sandbox is active and ready to use refresh configuration login reconnect to salesforce edit deactivatedelete inactive this sandbox is deactivated and can be safely deleted delete edit license usage salesforce connected sandboxes with statuses salesforce connected , pending activation , or active all count toward your sandbox license usage what happens if license limits are reached? you’ll see a license limit error—deactivate or delete other sandboxes, or contact your account manager key actions explained connect/reconnect to salesforce authenticate and link the sandbox to salesforce available in most statuses except inactive refresh configuration copies latest configuration settings from the connected production tenant activate enables sandbox for use only for pending statuses deactivate sets the sandbox to ‘inactive’ users can no longer log in edit change sandbox properties at anytime delete delete sandboxes that are not active users can no longer log in provisioning or connecting a new sandbox from production provisioning a new sandbox from salesforce to connect a nue sandbox to a salesforce environment, you need to first provision a new salesforce sandbox from your salesforce production org salesforce sandboxes are isolated environments where you can safely develop, test, and stage changes before deploying them to production once created, these sandboxes can then be linked to nue for end to end sandbox lifecycle management prerequisites you must have system administrator access to the salesforce production org your org must have available salesforce sandbox licenses step by step how to create a new salesforce sandbox 1\ log in to your salesforce production org navigate to https //login salesforce com or your custom salesforce domain use credentials for the production environment (not a sandbox) 2\ go to sandbox setup in the upper right corner, click the gear icon , then select setup in the quick find box on the left, search for “sandboxes” and click on it 3\ click “new sandbox” you’ll see a list of existing sandboxes (if any) click the “new sandbox” button to begin provisioning a new environment 4\ enter sandbox details sandbox name this will be the subdomain for login (e g , mydevsandbox → mydevsandbox mydomain sandbox my salesforce com) description optionally add a note about its purpose (e g , “uat testing” or “nue dev integration”) sandbox type choose from developer lightweight, includes metadata only developer pro more storage partial copy includes metadata + sample data (requires template) full copy complete replica of production (includes data; longer creation time) 5\ (optional) select a sandbox template for partial copy and full copy sandboxes, select a template to control which data is included 6\ click “create” salesforce will begin provisioning the sandbox this process may take a few minutes to several hours depending on the type and size of your org 7\ monitor progress return to the sandboxes page in setup to view the status once it reaches “active” , you can log in using the sandbox url https //\<sandboxname> sandbox my salesforce com salesforce doc references salesforce help https //help salesforce com/s/articleview?id=platform data sandbox create htm\&language=en us\&type=5\&utm source=chatgpt com provides step‑by‑step guidance directly from salesforce setup to creating a sandbox salesforce trailhead https //trailhead salesforce com/content/learn/modules/nonprofit success pack maintenance/set up a sandbox in your salesforce org?utm source=chatgpt com a learning module that covers sandbox types, use cases and setup instructions salesforce help https //help salesforce com/s/articleview?id=sf deploy sandboxes parent htm\&language=en us\&type=5\&utm source=chatgpt com offers an overview of sandbox usage, including its benefits for development and testing provisioning a nue sandbox now that your salesforce sandbox is ready, you can provision a corresponding nue sandbox and connect it to the newly created salesforce environment to get started navigate to system settings → sandbox management click “new sandbox” fill in the required fields organization name / connected production tenant – (read only) sandbox name – (required) alias – (required, must be unique, max 30 characters; letters, numbers, and hyphens only) admin emails – (required) you may use the same admin email as your production tenant—there’s no need to use a different email for each sandbox linked to the same production tenant all other configuration values will be automatically copied from the production tenant, including the number of user licenses note that the sandbox management licenses will not be copied from the production tenant finally, click “provision” to create the nue sandbox the sandbox will be created in a few seconds upon provisioning sandbox appears in ‘ created ’ status when the admin logs in for the first time, status becomes ‘ pending connection ’ once connected to salesforce, within the first hour, configuration is copied automatically and status moves to ‘ pending activation ’ after activation, sandbox is ready for use and bi directional sync is enabled the sandbox will be provisioned in the https //app sandbox nue io within a few seconds connect to salesforce sandbox after the sandbox is created, the sandbox list is refreshed with the newly provisioned sandbox record users can click on the "cloud" icon to redirect to the sandbox login page in a new browser tab or window to login to the sandbox environment for the first time, and connect to the salesforce sandbox if you provide a unique admin email that hasn’t been used in the sandbox environment before, an activation email will be sent, prompting the admin to activate the new sandbox tenant if you use an existing admin email already associated with another nue sandbox, no activation email is needed—you can simply log in with that email and select the newly provisioned sandbox from the environment switcher, as shown in the image below after logging in to the newly provisioned sandbox successfully, you can follow docid\ bb flgeq o4hyjmbqrxd5 to connect the nue sandbox with a salesforce sandbox please make sure to select 'sandbox' as the salesforce environment when initiating the connection with the salesforce sandbox, as shown in the following image once the salesforce connection is successfully established, users will see a confirmation screen indicating that the connection is active at this point, the admin user in nue is linked to the corresponding admin user in the salesforce sandbox , and the nue api user is also mapped to the same salesforce admin , allowing the api key to operate with the appropriate admin level permissions the admin can now begin adding users in nue and mapping them to users in the salesforce sandbox automatic user provisioning & mapping the user mapping process will be automated in an upcoming release reconnect to salesforce sandbox within a nue sandbox tenant, you can reconnect to your salesforce sandbox at any time if the salesforce connection or reconnection fails the sandbox status will revert to the previous state (e g , pending connection or pending activation ) an error message will appear, explaining the reason for the failure you can retry the connection whenever you’re ready connect an existing sandbox to production admins can also link an already existing sandbox to their production tenant using the connect existing sandbox flow from the sandbox management page, the admin clicks "connect existing sandbox" and enters the sandbox's tenant id (found in the sandbox's settings under organization settings > company information) the system runs the following validations before allowing the link valid tenant id format — the entered id must be a valid uuid if not, the system rejects the input must be a sandbox tenant — if the entered tenant id belongs to a production tenant, the system rejects it only sandbox tenants can be linked sandbox must exist — the tenant id must correspond to an existing tenant in the sandbox environment if no matching tenant is found, the system displays an error not already linked to another production tenant — if the sandbox is already linked to a different production tenant, the system notifies the admin and prevents the link not already linked to the current production tenant — if the sandbox is already connected to the admin's own production tenant, the system prevents a duplicate link organization name must match — the sandbox's organization name must exactly match the production tenant's organization name primary contact email must match — the primary contact email on the sandbox must match the primary contact email on the production tenant if all validations pass, the system displays the sandbox's organization name and primary contact email for the admin to confirm once confirmed, the sandbox is linked to the production tenant its initial status is determined automatically if the sandbox already has a salesforce connection, it enters the "salesforce connected" state; otherwise, it starts at "pending connection" and the admin will need to connect it to salesforce before activation if any validation fails, the system displays a relevant error message for example, if the sandbox is already linked to another production tenant, the admin is notified and prevents the linking sync configurations from production once the salesforce connection is successfully established, return to the production tenant , go to settings → sandbox management , and click the refresh icon above the sandbox list you’ll now see the newly provisioned sandbox with the status “salesforce connected” , as shown below to finalize setup, simply navigate to settings → business object , and click “sync custom fields from salesforce” this step ensures that lifecycle manager and billing configurations are fully synchronized in your newly connected nue sandbox now, click the “sync configuration” action icon to update the sandbox and set its status to “pending activation ” if you’re ready to proceed, you can click the “activate” action icon to immediately activate the sandbox troubleshoot sandbox setup you can view sandbox status messages by clicking on the 'view' action icon the sandbox status messages panel provides a detailed timeline of key events during the sandbox lifecycle, including creation, salesforce connection attempts, and configuration copy status as shown in the example, it logs both successful steps—like sandbox creation and connection to salesforce—and failures, such as configuration copy errors or connection issues these messages help admins troubleshoot issues quickly and understand exactly where the provisioning or setup process may have failed synchronize configuration settings sandbox management supports bidirectional settings sync between production and sandbox from the sync configurations flow, admins choose a direction production to sandbox — refreshes the sandbox with production settings always available sandbox to production — pushes sandbox settings into production only available when the sandbox status is active a confirmation dialog warns "this action will overwrite the production configuration with the settings from sandbox this change cannot be undone " all available settings categories are unselected by default individual settings can also be separately selected settings categories nue platform session settings roles custom fields auto number schemes price builder cpq settings (including pricing attributes, product categories, etc ) custom fields quantity tier attributes product access rules entities everything billing billing order credit quote templates (order forms) order templates (order forms) invoice templates credit memo templates usage webhooks webhooks exclusions important the usage rating user (under everything billing > usage) is not synced because this user is tenant specific after syncing settings, reconfigure the usage rating user in the destination environment synchronize product catalog the product catalog tab within the sync configurations flow lets admins copy nue catalog objects between a sandbox and production environment sync direction product catalog sync supports both directions sandbox to production — push catalog objects from sandbox into production production to sandbox — push catalog objects from production into sandbox here’s a clearer, more structured version with the use cases included important direction locking the sync direction is subject to a one way lock the first sync direction you choose sets the allowed path if your first product catalog sync is production to sandbox, you can continue to do so until you do sandbox to production sync with the same sandbox after this point, you can only do sandbox to production sync if your first catalog sync is sandbox to production, the direction permanently locks to sandbox to production production to sandbox catalog sync will be blocked for this sandbox going forward this lock cannot be undone plan your sync strategy accordingly production → sandbox (initial setup / refresh use case) when you create a new sandbox, or link an existing sandbox to production you will typically perform a production → sandbox sync to refresh your sandbox with the latest product catalog from production this allows you to start with an up to date catalog safely test or make changes in the sandbox ⚠️ important once you perform a sandbox → production sync with that same sandbox (e g , during go live or when pushing updates), the direction becomes locked after that point ❌ you can no longer sync from production → sandbox for that sandbox ✅ only sandbox → production syncs are allowed sandbox → production (go live / ongoing updates use case) when you are ready to push product catalog changes from sandbox to production perform your initial go live sync , or deploy ongoing catalog updates you will perform a sandbox → production sync ⚠️ important if this is your first sync , the direction is immediately locked to sandbox → production after that point ❌ production → sandbox sync is blocked ✅ only sandbox → production syncs are allowed key takeaway the first sync direction determines future behavior the lock is permanent and cannot be undone plan your sync strategy carefully before performing your first sync selecting what to sync admins can choose between two selection modes all products — syncs all nue products that have both a sku and a price model an optional filter (graphql based) can be applied to narrow which products are included the filter must be valid json individual object types — admins can select specific object types to sync unit of measures (uoms) credit types credit pools credit conversions price books price tags product groups products bundles bundle suites product relationships when selecting individual object types, the system exports and imports them in a dependency safe order to avoid reference integrity issues post sync republish after a successful import where all objects complete, sandbox management automatically triggers a republish flow in the destination environment this covers active self service price books published products price tags product relationships this ensures all previously published items remain published and storefronts and cpq flows continue to work correctly note republish is only triggered when the import status is fully completed if the import is partially completed or failed, republish is skipped error handling & edge cases export failure — if the export fails, the import is skipped entirely the failure status and error details are reported no files exported — if the export completes but produces no downloadable files, the import is skipped and a partial status is reported export timeout — exports are polled every 5 seconds for up to 30 minutes if the export does not complete in time, a timeout error is raised import timeout — same polling behavior applies to imports (5 second interval, 30 minute max) publish timeout — the post import republish also has a polling timeout partial import — if some objects import successfully but others fail, the result is partialcompleted downloadable csv error logs are provided for failed records publish failure — if republish fails or partially succeeds, the sync itself is still considered complete publish failures are logged but do not fail the overall operation downloadable csv error logs are provided for review direction revert on failure — if a catalog sync fails after the direction state was transitioned, the system attempts a best effort revert using a compare and set guard to prevent stale rollbacks batch completion tracking — when settings and product catalog are synced together in a single request, the system uses a batch correlation id to track unified completion across all operations the sync is only marked complete when all constituent operations finish template sync only published quote/order/invoice/credit memo templates are synced, with a maximum of 30 templates per sync operation status and monitoring throughout provisioning, sync, and publish operations, sandbox management appends granular status messages with timestamps, item counts, processing durations, and failure log urls admins can click view on any sandbox row to open the status messages panel click refresh to reload the latest events click show more to load older historical events only the last 20 events are displayed at a time (where each export, import, or publish operation counts as one event), with pagination in place to access older history best practices plan your catalog sync direction early decide whether your workflow is production to sandbox or sandbox to production before the first product catalog sync the direction lock is permanent for each sandbox use sandbox aliases consistently aliases like dev , uat , and staging help teams quickly identify sandbox purposes aliases must be unique, alphanumeric with hyphens, and at most 30 characters reconfigure tenant specific settings after sync after syncing settings to a new environment, review and reconfigure usage rating user — this is tenant specific and not synced salesforce user mappings — these are environment specific any api keys or external integration endpoints that differ between environments deactivate before deleting always deactivate a sandbox before deleting it active sandboxes cannot be deleted directly deactivation prevents further logins and frees up the sandbox license monitor sync operations use the status messages panel to monitor long running operations like product catalog syncs each export, import, and publish step is logged with timestamps, item counts, and processing durations if failures occur, downloadable error logs provide details for troubleshooting common issues product catalog tab is missing the product catalog tab is hidden in the sync configurations dialog when the sync direction is production to sandbox but the catalog direction is locked to sandbox to production (due to a previous s2p catalog sync) the sandbox has not yet reached salesforce connected status if you need to reset the catalog sync direction, contact nue support sandbox stuck in "salesforce connected" or "pending activation" if the automatic settings copy does not complete within the expected timeframe check the status messages for errors manually trigger a production to sandbox sync using the refresh configuration action once settings are copied, click activate to move the sandbox to active status faq can i sync only specific products instead of the entire catalog? yes when "all" is selected on the product catalog tab, you can click "filters" to apply conditions that narrow which products are included you can filter by product attributes using a simple search or an advanced filter builder when selecting individual object types, all items of that type are included can i sync from one sandbox to another sandbox? no sync is only supported between a production tenant and its linked sandboxes to move configurations between sandboxes, sync from sandbox a to production, then from production to sandbox b is there a limit on how many times i can sync? no you can sync configurations and product catalog as many times as needed each sync updates the destination with the latest data from the source what happens if i sync settings that include templates? only published templates are synced, with a maximum of 30 templates per operation draft or unpublished templates are excluded if you have more than 30 published templates, consider syncing in batches does syncing settings affect my salesforce configuration? no settings sync only affects nue side configuration salesforce custom settings and metadata are managed separately through salesforce's own sandbox refresh process